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Sleep

Join our Sleep forum for tips on creating a sleep routine for your baby or toddler. Need more advice on your childs development? Sign up to our Ages and Stages newsletter here.

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Original poster

Do you wake your LO from naps to keep the schedule on track?

27 replies

mistressploppy · 02/06/2010 11:25

DS (7mo) is just so variable! I put him down for a morning nap at 9.20am and he's still asleep!

This means he will might only take a short pm one and be knackered, despite a catnap before bed. Or he might have the usual length nap and we'll miss toddler group! (again)

Pooooo....

WWYD?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Meltedchocolates · 02/06/2010 11:26

It depends - DC only has 1 sleep in the afternoon - I tend to wake him about 2 hours after going down or by 3pm which ever happens first - as it can affect bedtimes.

Know what you mean about toddler groups though

MegBusset · 02/06/2010 11:29

I do wake DS2 early if I want to go out somewhere, but then he has always been pretty flexible re: naps, as long as he gets an hour or so somewhere in the day then he's fine.

Original poster

mistressploppy · 02/06/2010 11:33

Thanks, it just gets complicated sometimes! I expect it will be easier when he just needs one, fitting in 3 naps is a PITA sometimes...

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PrettyCandles · 02/06/2010 11:47

It depends on the situation. I found ythat morning naps could generally be shortened without any problem, because I knew that the dc would be having a long nap in the afternoon. I was wary about shortening afternoon naps, as then the dc could get very over-tired by evening, and that could mess thinngs up for us all. OTOH I rarely let them sleep after about 3.30 (or 4ish when they're older) as then they won't be ready to go to bed at a reasonable time, which can have a knock-on effect on the following day.

A routine needs to be a guide, not a master. Tryvarious modifications andsee what works for you.

Lionstar · 02/06/2010 11:51

Wake a sleeping baby??? aHaa aHaaha aHaahaa

differentnameforthis · 02/06/2010 12:28

I'm with lionstar...my dh woke dd1 once. I did warn him not to....he never did it again.

But seriously...how big a deal is it? Does he need three naps, or can he get by on 2, for one day?

I don't think babies sleep longer than they need to, so I would be inclined to leave him.

AngelDog · 02/06/2010 17:48

In general I never wake a sleeping baby (my instinctive reaction would be like Lionstar, but I've had the same dilemma about it affecting later naps / sleep.

I have woken 5 m.o. DS from an unusually long lunchtime nap as I know the afternoon nap would be too late, and he'd either refuse to sleep at bedtime, or not miss the nap and be overtired. What happened? He refused to take the afternoon nap anyway and shrieked util bedtime.

NoSleepTillWeaning · 02/06/2010 21:02

I do/did wake up mine - i neeeeeeeeeed routine. Plus unless DS is awake by 2 ish after lunch I don't get time to feed him before the school run. Most of the time he's already awake tho.

[runs away and hides]

bippyhippy · 02/06/2010 21:10

lol.I let my ds2 sleep as long as he wants in the morning as I'm gradually pushing him along a bit. Then he has a cat nap in the pm - 30 mins or so, and then bed at 7:30 but he is 16 months. I generally think that you should protect one nap and let them sleep as long as they want to at that nap because it will become THE nap. For example, if your baby likes the morning nap most, then let that be THE nap. When he's older you can push the nap along a bit until he's finally napping at 11am or something. And then again to after lunch later. The afternoon naps can then be the ones you wake them from and eventually phase out. If your baby prefers a long sleep in the pm, then that should be the protected nap. Every baby I've ever known has one sleep that is their long one. That's the sleep you should protect at all costs.

Soz. bit of a long answer! lol!

MrsTittleMouse · 02/06/2010 21:12

Aha! Hahahahahaha! Ahahaha! Hahahahahahahaha!

Your child sleeps?

Leave well alone!

AngelDog · 02/06/2010 21:17

MrsTittleMouse, two months ago I could have written your post. DS is now not bad at napping. Hope your LO improves. (And well done on resisting the temptation to add multiple exclamation marks to your post too. )

And I should qualify my response - DS has only recently started napping for more than 30-45 mins at a time, so whether to wake him to protect the 'routine' has only been a rare decision for me.

Original poster

mistressploppy · 03/06/2010 09:19

Me too Angeldog (re the 30-45min nap thing)

nice to have a new problem, tbh!

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Meglet · 03/06/2010 09:21

yes, I did. Seemed to work with my two. But they were good sleepers generally.

megonthemoon · 03/06/2010 09:28

I'm completely with bippyhippy on this. I never woke my DS from his lunchtime nap as that was the one he slept at for longest and best IYSWIM, and I still try to protect that at all costs (DS now 2.2). Morning nap I gradually whittled down to 30 mins from 1h30 (this was from about 6 mo to 12mo rather than over the course of a week by the way!) I let him sleep as long as he wanted at first then as he got bigger I would wake him to make sure it was shorter and didn't impinge on the lunch nap. The pm one was always short with him and then he dropped it around 6-7mo anyway and I just let him sleep where he dropped for that one be it sofa, buggy, cot.

I actually found that I could wake my sleeping baby reasonably easily, but woebetide anyone who tries to wake my sleeping 2 year old. He will still sleep 3 hours some lunchtimes which can really eat into the day, but I'd rather that than deal with one of his post-nap tantrums ever again!!!

Original poster

mistressploppy · 03/06/2010 09:33

Thanks Meg, that was useful. I'm not sure which nap to protect as I'd rather he slept longer at lunchtime but it does often seem to be the shorter one. But maybe that's just because I let him snooze so long in the morning?

OP posts:

megonthemoon · 03/06/2010 09:41

Sounds the same as my DS. Short morning nap would always equal great lunchtime nap and a happy boy. But the occasional long morning nap would invariably lead to a shorter lunch one, and then he'd be super grumpy by bedtime. So the lunchtime one was the one that he really needed to get him through to bedtime and if it went well he was really happy. I started to limit that morning one, so that he had enough sleep then but it didn't eat into his lunchtime one. I realised that if he had more than 1.5 hours in the morning then the lunchtime one would shorten, so I limited him to the 1.5 hours and then gradually whittled that down over the next few months, to presevre the long lunch nap. By 13mo he was down to 30 mins then, so we tried dropping it and by 14mo he was able to last until 12.30 before needing his lunchtime nap.

Even now if he doesn't get a good lunchtime nap, he is a nightmare, so that was clearly the one for us that we needed to preserve.

GothAnneGeddes · 03/06/2010 09:51

I'm going to sound like a bit of a hippy here, but I virtually never like waking my child up, because I think it's disrespectful, I'd rather let her wake up when she's ready.

I have to say that I'm v fortunate as she's currently a good sleeper and has her own little routine.

But, I know this wouldn't work for everyone (so please don't flame me), so it's what ever suits you both.

Original poster

mistressploppy · 03/06/2010 09:54

Hmmm, the difficult I have is that it's not guaranteed that if he has a short morning nap that he will actually take a long lunchtime one! So I always end up letting him sleep whenever, just so he definitely gets some.

Maybe I just need to be brave

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NoSleepTillWeaning · 03/06/2010 09:56

SHould be clear - I do what the others do basically. When DDs and DS were young they napped whenever, but as they got older I cut back the morning nap to 45 mins so that they would nap longer at lunch time. Then I don't let them nap past 5pm either because of bedtime. If DS is knackered and hasn't had an afternoon nap, I let him have a 5 minute cat nap on the boob to tide him over (the sort of nap that they wouldn't stay in anyway if you put them down).

Lunchtime is the long nap but i do have to get a feed in before the school run at 3pm.

Original poster

mistressploppy · 03/06/2010 09:59

This is great - NoSleep and Meg, how old were your LOs when you started limiting the morning nap?

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megonthemoon · 03/06/2010 10:17

mistressploppy - although i decided to limit it at 6mo because I realised when he slept too long in the morning it would mess up the rest of the day for him, most of the time he would wake of his own accord before my cut-off. It was no more than once a week where he went longer than 1.5 hours and that was when the lunchtime nap would be a mess, so I would just wake him then.

I only became stricter about waking him when I wanted to start dropping that morning nap as he was going much longer before lunchtime nap so it was clear he could last longer. So around 10mo, I would limit him to an hour, and then 45 mins and then 30 mins, and then tried dropping it at abour 13mo. But again most times he would naturally wake before I needed to.

If he was ill I would never wake him from a nap.

It probably makes me sound like some sort of Gina Ford controlling mum, but I did it gradually over many months, and most days didn't need to limit him anyway, and I never restricted the lunchtime nap (even now I don't unless we absolutely have to for some reason - e.g. doctors appt). So I'm actually sort of with GothAnnGeddes a bit on this as well

Original poster

mistressploppy · 03/06/2010 10:19

Thank you, I really appreciate this . He is still asleep (it's been an hour so far) so I think I'll just leave him to it for a few more weeks and see what unfolds.

OP posts:

TrinityTrinityTrinity · 03/06/2010 10:22

wow, your child does the sleeping thing

WAKE IT?

Noooooooooo

Meglet · 03/06/2010 10:28

mistressploppy I did whatever the GF book told me to . So at 7 months.... .... it was 9 - 9:45 at that age. But it doesn't work for every baby / mum and we had started it at a very young age as I was clueless.

Just follow your instincts, for some babies waking is ok, for others it leads to mayhem.

CatHerder · 03/06/2010 10:30

I never ever woke dd or ds, cos I was grateful for any sleep they had, whenever. I used to thank God for the (extremely rare) blissful peace and face the consequences later ...

Ds2, OTOH, is a Sleeper. At 2.5, he still asks to go to bed when he is tired . So with him I used to keep his morning nap short - if he slept too long in the morning he wouldn't need an afternoon nap, and would then fall asleep in his tea, and then not be tired at bedtime, and then wake hungry in the small hours. It was worth waking him, although I found it hard to get my head around the idea at first.

Actually, ds2 got woken all the time - taking dd to and from school, taking ds1 to toddler groups. I still regularly wake him from his afternoon nap to do the school run.

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